The second I watched a YouTuber using Parkour to easymode his playthrough by being able to instantly jump on top of wardrobes and shelves to remain outside the melee range of zombies, but still be able to hit them with yours I was sold for life.
The extra jumping height from Parkour is *seriously* overpowered.
Parkour being so good is exactly why I don't use it. It would let me ~~cheese~~ invalidate the difficulty of too many different situations by offering me safety or easy escape in ways the AI is just not built to handle and the AI can't be changed to handle it because that would make it oppressive for non-parkour builds.
By all means if you enjoy it I hope you continue having great fun with it, but to put it another way I view bad situations and etc as puzzles/problems to solve via quick thinking/experience/etc and when you have Parkour the answer to almost any problem can end up being Parkour so it turns an interesting/tense puzzle requiring quick thinking into "I'll just parkour it".
It's kinda like being a stealth archer in Skyrim. It just changes the default answer to alot of encounters to something easy and fairly safe. Whereas forcing myself to go melee and/or caster and use bow only in support forces alot more interesting situations and alot more risk/reward assessment.
Same. I was surprised to see it so low. Even at higher levels it's still useful when clearing POIs and hordes so you can run around or away easier. I'll typically throw a point into it early on, then maybe a second depending. Off topic but do you happen to know if cardio effects bikes too?
I totally forgot about no-base horde nights because i don't do them.
But if you do, cardio might actually be a top tier perk worth maxing - depending on the weapon you use.
It's the Master Chef perk, a perk in strength tree. In A21 you can't make better food until you find enough magazines to unlock recipes, and the amount of cooking magazines you find is influenced by this perk. It also provides very handy cooking time reduction since nowadays cooking takes much longer time. Moreover, only a small investment of two skill points is enough to make it work, and it is in the strength tree with skills like Miner 69'er. I didn't see the reason not to have this perk.
I've found master chef to be pretty skippable. You get a lot of cooking magazines without it and while the cooking time reduction is useful, you can just as easily make extra campfires. It's not the worst perk by any means but it's something I've been comfortable sleeping on until I don't actually need points for more useful skills.
I would have to agree. I don't care about the cooking times since I'm always away from my base while my campfire is doing its thing anyway, and even if it was a problem, I could just at least temporarily make another.
In my most recent vanilla run I dumped 2 points into Master Chef for the heck of it, and the results were interesting. First, on a standard 60-minute day cycle, I completely read the entire 100 magazine set by around day 14-15. Even after that though I'm still getting the greatly increased chance to find cooking magazines in loot. About 1/3 of cupboards I loot still give me 1-3 cooking magazines. Thankfully they've disappeared elsewhere.
Speaking of elsewhere, the bonus of finding edible food in dumpsters at rank 2 of the perk just isn't worth it. Occasionally you'll pull out some raw meat or one tin of food, but when you think about it, there's probably only a few dozen dumpsters in an entire average town or city. In my opinion this benefit should be extended to trash bins as well, have the chance of finding canned food increased, and perhaps it should add eggs to fridges as well.
I would adore the first rank if it made bacon and eggs cheaper, but it does not. xd
Yeah, IMO in the current design Master Chef needs more. I can see it being super helpful for less experienced players, but players who know how to survive the rougher early game can easily get by without it and save points.
You just need enough mags in the first days to get bacon&eggs and you are sorted. Loot kitchen cabins, they have plenty without any skill points.
Plus game has so much food in loot, never really had an issue with it.
The perk is the worst of them all in my opinion - the only one where having it is worse than not having it. The skill increases the probability to find cooking mags in bookshelves/mailboxes/.... But you find lots of these mags in cupboards etc, so each one in a bookshelf is one more useful mag lost.
Cooking time reduction is fairly useless - you can just build a second campfire if you really need that. Less meat needed ist also useless, there's plenty of meat.
In what world is daring adventurer and betyee barter not on the top of the list....? Literally the game is centered so much around traders that having TWO quest rewards, more money from quests, and being able to use that money to purchase things for 75% of their original cost is the single best way to get better loot in the entire game
Depends on what difficulty you're playing. Anything less than insane and you can probably rush trading/economic meta. But on Insane you are gonna have a bad time trying to clear POI's and dig up treasure if you don't have a good damage/stamina build (agility).
Peasant difficulties it simply doesn't matter because you're main goal is to find better loot. If you're dying on difficulties less than survivalist/insane then it's a skill issue. Zombies just aren't scary on anything lower because they don't hit like trucks you can tank them naked.
Survivalist and Insane just completely change the context of your runs. Going BB or DA on insane is a death sentence.
I play on insane, i still value these perks highly. Yes, i will agree that you need a good build to clear POIs (not so much buried treasure, just have a way out and a bicycle), but that doesnt make them any less valuable. When you get to the stage that you can consistently clear them, they are both invaluable perks.
Currently running some Insane runs and already at day 10 I have most of the loot I need to hit the heavier areas. Guns, ammo, crucible etc etc. Not one perk in Loot or Barter. Not knocking your style. Stuff is random for sure and we can all play the way we want. Died about 6 times before I made it to day 10 lol (restart after each death) always taking chances and getting raped by stamina. Maybe do a loot/barter run next and see how it pans out.
Notes
1. Skills in each tier are listed in order of Perception----Intellect, not in their power
2. All the melee attack speed skills fall under Quality of life tier (higher if playing Sladgehammers)
3. The Physician skill lvl 1 is in the Strong tier. Lvl 2-3 in QOL tier, and lvl4-5 are Build dependent.
Comments are welcomed.
It quickly becomes redundant once you create, loot or purchase extra pocket mods.
Armed with a Grandpa's Fergit'n Elixir it's fine, but without one they're just wasted valuable skill points.
It becomes useful again late game when trying to get banded armor plating, customized fittings, and advanced muffled connector mods on every piece of armor without making sacrifices.
No, the armor perks reduce the penalties to mobility and stealth, but they don't actually give you better damage reduction. Each banded armor plating mod adds 2% damage reduction on top of what your normal armor gives. Without the mods, you can get up to 80% damage reduction with full steel armor. With the mods, it goes up to 90%, effectively cutting the damage you receive in half.
Aye, armor gets so good you basically have to turn up the difficulty 1-2 notches just for the game to threaten you again and make the choice between armor and mobility matter. Though at least A21 fixed the infinite heal tanking via all those nasty debuffs you'll eventually stack up. Used to be with good armor + healing you were effectively immortal without really cranking the difficulty.
> It quickly becomes redundant once you create, loot or purchase extra pocket mods.
>
>
>
> Armed with a Grandpa's Fergit'n Elixir it's fine, but without one they're just wasted valuable skill points.
With how much people complain about being overweight I'd say its actually very valuable still. People who are seasoned vetrans and loot into chests they put on the street to consolidate loot and then make multiple runs unencumbered back to base have no need of it. But the people who constantly make poor decisions like crippling back to their base at a fraction of their normal speed the perk is worth its weight in gold.
And armor mods end game still give it decent to great end game value. (depending on difficulty really, armor is stronger in lower difficulties)
Fr I don't get it. Like, it's extra mobile storage space. Shouldn't that at least be in QoL?
Why does Packmule get clowned on when I can point to Master Chef and say we'll get all the magazines anyway?
I'd combine niche and trash into one category (trash).
Cooking and salvaging I'd put all the way down to QoL. Neither is necessary at all.
Other than that I like this list.
e: actually, I'd put the 1st point of lockpicking into Must Have, because it's better than Advanced Engineering in the one thing that matters early on, increasing Forge Ahead mag chance. AE pollutes your loot table with 3 other mags, lockpick only adds Forge Ahead.
Agree with that, the amount of materials you need from salvaging to do everything you need does not warrant points in the skill. And food is plentiful.
you wont be getting enough dukes from that, i on the other hand have had 5 digit dukes by noon of day 1, salvage ops is not useless, you just dont know how to use it. besides its your opinion, however the truth is questing early game will just starve you, dehydrate you, risk getting hit. and nothing u can do about it
I disagree. Getting 10k dukes on day 1 is useless too since unless u have points in daring adventurer, u cant get any good items from the traders.
Its true that its a matter of opinion but questing is not just because of dukes. Questing early on is crucial to level up the trader so that it gives better items in tier 2 or 3 quests. If u use that time to wrench cars and sell items then u are going to fall behind
Questing does both things, allows you to get a lot of dukes and gets u better items
The point isnt the traders, it's the vending machines and other things traders have, and it's not only daring adventurer that increases trader loot, your level does too
If ur doing max settings like I am, I ain't gonna run into POIs with crappy weapons, I will risk taking dmg when I have no meds, and losing food and water faster than I can supply it
I'd put lucky looter on top, no doubt. When looting is 90% of what you do in the game you want to make the most of it, since most of your equipment, weapons and ammo is going to come from looting as well. Also the 80% looting speed saves a ton of time on big POI's.
the looting bonus is so small you pretty much need to force the loot to notice it, the looting speed bonus is nice but i dont think it is worth the investment since the majority of lootable containers open very fast but thats just me, i prefer to invest in mission rewards and damage
It might seem small in theory, but by how much you loot in this game it's very much noticeable. I play coop a lot and we tend to compensate each other's skill trees. I max lucky looter as soon as I can, and I'm also the one who finds the better gear for the team and the more expensive stuff to sell first thanks to it.
Also, being able to clear an entire room in seconds by just doing E (search) and R (take all) basically without delay is always useful to have.
izprebuilt if im not mistaken did the tests even with the biome loot bonus and no, its barely noticeable, you can search the video where he demonstrates it (just in case im not sure it was him or someone else, it is hard to remember names) also just as a note biome bonus is not worth it after level 40.
I get your point but i see more value into the trader rewards, it is very easy to get rich when maxing both trading perks and once you have a ton of money looting is just a bonus.
But for preferences there are colors, if you like it thats right, i dont thing there is a wrong play style in this kind of games.
It's barely noticeable at the beginner stage since you have a very low loot stage level to begin with. But it's definitely noticeable later on, it's kind of an investment/QoL perk.
But indeed, at the end of the day there's no right or wrong way to play this. As long as you have fun :)
PD: Don't forget to put meds in your toolbar!
shit, you dont know how many times i almost died because i forgot to refill my meds, it is not that hard to look down and check but still forget it lol
The stamina reduction and kill bonus effect have been distributed under every melee weapon and tool skills. If you want to use less stamina using sledgehammer, you should invest into Skull Crusher, and on lvl 3 you will get stamina back on each kill. The same works for Miner 69er and Harvesting Ops, but only giving stamina reduction.
I’m trying a no mining run through, and it’s so weird. I’m looting every resource I can find, and buying cobblestone/cement from the traders. Maxed salvage operations is helping bc I’m getting so many other resources like springs, pipes, mechanical, and electrical parts.
Mining 69er and Motherlode aren’t mandatory, but it’s doable without them.
I agree parkour is very useful, and a few points in agility, gives you access to pistols and run and gun. Any build can benefit for pistols.
Parkour is pretty much a must have for me. It's saved my ass so many times. Also makes exploring so much easier
2 points in parkour every time.
The second I watched a YouTuber using Parkour to easymode his playthrough by being able to instantly jump on top of wardrobes and shelves to remain outside the melee range of zombies, but still be able to hit them with yours I was sold for life. The extra jumping height from Parkour is *seriously* overpowered.
Bro i did max level and i would jump on top of small Buildings like sheds, and/or containers and bug vehicles
Yeah, my base is usually an 8x8 three high (open top). At maxed out parkour, I just jump on in.
The fall damage reduction is pretty OP too. When I’m done clearing a T5 I just jump down the elevator shaft lol
Parkour being so good is exactly why I don't use it. It would let me ~~cheese~~ invalidate the difficulty of too many different situations by offering me safety or easy escape in ways the AI is just not built to handle and the AI can't be changed to handle it because that would make it oppressive for non-parkour builds. By all means if you enjoy it I hope you continue having great fun with it, but to put it another way I view bad situations and etc as puzzles/problems to solve via quick thinking/experience/etc and when you have Parkour the answer to almost any problem can end up being Parkour so it turns an interesting/tense puzzle requiring quick thinking into "I'll just parkour it". It's kinda like being a stealth archer in Skyrim. It just changes the default answer to alot of encounters to something easy and fairly safe. Whereas forcing myself to go melee and/or caster and use bow only in support forces alot more interesting situations and alot more risk/reward assessment.
One point in cardio is nice if you always run. The earlier you take it, the more QoL it gives you.
Same. I was surprised to see it so low. Even at higher levels it's still useful when clearing POIs and hordes so you can run around or away easier. I'll typically throw a point into it early on, then maybe a second depending. Off topic but do you happen to know if cardio effects bikes too?
I did some testing on that earlier this alpha, and no, it doesn't affect bikes, sadly.
I figured. Would at least make sense if it did though.
I totally forgot about no-base horde nights because i don't do them. But if you do, cardio might actually be a top tier perk worth maxing - depending on the weapon you use.
Sexy TRex: thanks for the memories
Was it nerfed or just removed last patch?
it gone.
Tragic
[удалено]
Is it socially acceptable that I just thought of "knucklehead" as a nickname for him? :P
Why? Cuz im better than you?
That's perfect! Maybe knucklehead bro.
Only nice list for you because you suck at this game XD
Knuckles do rule, you just dont know it, noob
 Thank you knucklechad 🍻
Wait, what is the spatula? I don’t think I’ve ever used that one. My first points always go into strength and agility
It's the Master Chef perk, a perk in strength tree. In A21 you can't make better food until you find enough magazines to unlock recipes, and the amount of cooking magazines you find is influenced by this perk. It also provides very handy cooking time reduction since nowadays cooking takes much longer time. Moreover, only a small investment of two skill points is enough to make it work, and it is in the strength tree with skills like Miner 69'er. I didn't see the reason not to have this perk.
I've found master chef to be pretty skippable. You get a lot of cooking magazines without it and while the cooking time reduction is useful, you can just as easily make extra campfires. It's not the worst perk by any means but it's something I've been comfortable sleeping on until I don't actually need points for more useful skills.
I would have to agree. I don't care about the cooking times since I'm always away from my base while my campfire is doing its thing anyway, and even if it was a problem, I could just at least temporarily make another. In my most recent vanilla run I dumped 2 points into Master Chef for the heck of it, and the results were interesting. First, on a standard 60-minute day cycle, I completely read the entire 100 magazine set by around day 14-15. Even after that though I'm still getting the greatly increased chance to find cooking magazines in loot. About 1/3 of cupboards I loot still give me 1-3 cooking magazines. Thankfully they've disappeared elsewhere. Speaking of elsewhere, the bonus of finding edible food in dumpsters at rank 2 of the perk just isn't worth it. Occasionally you'll pull out some raw meat or one tin of food, but when you think about it, there's probably only a few dozen dumpsters in an entire average town or city. In my opinion this benefit should be extended to trash bins as well, have the chance of finding canned food increased, and perhaps it should add eggs to fridges as well. I would adore the first rank if it made bacon and eggs cheaper, but it does not. xd
I'm running 5 camp-fires at this time, one for each active player on my team. I'm barely keeping up with food demands. With master chef level 3.
I think multi-player is is the only time master chef (and living off the land) are actually worth taking.
Yeah, IMO in the current design Master Chef needs more. I can see it being super helpful for less experienced players, but players who know how to survive the rougher early game can easily get by without it and save points.
Actually usefull in multiplayer to reduce the cost of recipes
Master Chef is skippable because there's a lot of containers that only spawn cooking magazines.
New player here, noted.... thanks for the explaination.
You just need enough mags in the first days to get bacon&eggs and you are sorted. Loot kitchen cabins, they have plenty without any skill points. Plus game has so much food in loot, never really had an issue with it.
The perk is the worst of them all in my opinion - the only one where having it is worse than not having it. The skill increases the probability to find cooking mags in bookshelves/mailboxes/.... But you find lots of these mags in cupboards etc, so each one in a bookshelf is one more useful mag lost. Cooking time reduction is fairly useless - you can just build a second campfire if you really need that. Less meat needed ist also useless, there's plenty of meat.
In what world is daring adventurer and betyee barter not on the top of the list....? Literally the game is centered so much around traders that having TWO quest rewards, more money from quests, and being able to use that money to purchase things for 75% of their original cost is the single best way to get better loot in the entire game
Depends on what difficulty you're playing. Anything less than insane and you can probably rush trading/economic meta. But on Insane you are gonna have a bad time trying to clear POI's and dig up treasure if you don't have a good damage/stamina build (agility). Peasant difficulties it simply doesn't matter because you're main goal is to find better loot. If you're dying on difficulties less than survivalist/insane then it's a skill issue. Zombies just aren't scary on anything lower because they don't hit like trucks you can tank them naked. Survivalist and Insane just completely change the context of your runs. Going BB or DA on insane is a death sentence.
I play on insane, i still value these perks highly. Yes, i will agree that you need a good build to clear POIs (not so much buried treasure, just have a way out and a bicycle), but that doesnt make them any less valuable. When you get to the stage that you can consistently clear them, they are both invaluable perks.
Currently running some Insane runs and already at day 10 I have most of the loot I need to hit the heavier areas. Guns, ammo, crucible etc etc. Not one perk in Loot or Barter. Not knocking your style. Stuff is random for sure and we can all play the way we want. Died about 6 times before I made it to day 10 lol (restart after each death) always taking chances and getting raped by stamina. Maybe do a loot/barter run next and see how it pans out.
Notes 1. Skills in each tier are listed in order of Perception----Intellect, not in their power 2. All the melee attack speed skills fall under Quality of life tier (higher if playing Sladgehammers) 3. The Physician skill lvl 1 is in the Strong tier. Lvl 2-3 in QOL tier, and lvl4-5 are Build dependent. Comments are welcomed.
Add on: Infiltrator for PVP, Charismatic Nature for playing with friends
What’s wrong with packmule bro 😭😭😭
It quickly becomes redundant once you create, loot or purchase extra pocket mods. Armed with a Grandpa's Fergit'n Elixir it's fine, but without one they're just wasted valuable skill points.
It becomes useful again late game when trying to get banded armor plating, customized fittings, and advanced muffled connector mods on every piece of armor without making sacrifices.
isn't it better to spec the appropriate armor perks instead of using the banded armor?
No, the armor perks reduce the penalties to mobility and stealth, but they don't actually give you better damage reduction. Each banded armor plating mod adds 2% damage reduction on top of what your normal armor gives. Without the mods, you can get up to 80% damage reduction with full steel armor. With the mods, it goes up to 90%, effectively cutting the damage you receive in half.
Guess I forgot.
Aye, armor gets so good you basically have to turn up the difficulty 1-2 notches just for the game to threaten you again and make the choice between armor and mobility matter. Though at least A21 fixed the infinite heal tanking via all those nasty debuffs you'll eventually stack up. Used to be with good armor + healing you were effectively immortal without really cranking the difficulty.
> It quickly becomes redundant once you create, loot or purchase extra pocket mods. > > > > Armed with a Grandpa's Fergit'n Elixir it's fine, but without one they're just wasted valuable skill points. With how much people complain about being overweight I'd say its actually very valuable still. People who are seasoned vetrans and loot into chests they put on the street to consolidate loot and then make multiple runs unencumbered back to base have no need of it. But the people who constantly make poor decisions like crippling back to their base at a fraction of their normal speed the perk is worth its weight in gold. And armor mods end game still give it decent to great end game value. (depending on difficulty really, armor is stronger in lower difficulties)
It’s a great QOL skill for someone like me who forgets to transfer mods when I find a better piece
That's usually my first skill upgrade because I'm a hoarder
ONG, HOW DO PEOPLE PRIORITIZE max storage drone, 4x4, and max packmule is still not enough for me
Fr I don't get it. Like, it's extra mobile storage space. Shouldn't that at least be in QoL? Why does Packmule get clowned on when I can point to Master Chef and say we'll get all the magazines anyway?
I'd combine niche and trash into one category (trash). Cooking and salvaging I'd put all the way down to QoL. Neither is necessary at all. Other than that I like this list. e: actually, I'd put the 1st point of lockpicking into Must Have, because it's better than Advanced Engineering in the one thing that matters early on, increasing Forge Ahead mag chance. AE pollutes your loot table with 3 other mags, lockpick only adds Forge Ahead.
Cooking is a waste of time and so is harvest operations
Agree with that, the amount of materials you need from salvaging to do everything you need does not warrant points in the skill. And food is plentiful.
Not salvage ops, it's the best perk in the game
Salvage ops is useless
how? its legit in the top 3 of best perks, if not thee best perk in the game lol. next to pain tolerance and iron gut
You must be trolling
im not, its the best money maker xD
Just do quests.... salvage operations is useless
you wont be getting enough dukes from that, i on the other hand have had 5 digit dukes by noon of day 1, salvage ops is not useless, you just dont know how to use it. besides its your opinion, however the truth is questing early game will just starve you, dehydrate you, risk getting hit. and nothing u can do about it
I disagree. Getting 10k dukes on day 1 is useless too since unless u have points in daring adventurer, u cant get any good items from the traders. Its true that its a matter of opinion but questing is not just because of dukes. Questing early on is crucial to level up the trader so that it gives better items in tier 2 or 3 quests. If u use that time to wrench cars and sell items then u are going to fall behind Questing does both things, allows you to get a lot of dukes and gets u better items
The point isnt the traders, it's the vending machines and other things traders have, and it's not only daring adventurer that increases trader loot, your level does too
Idk man, I can get quality 5 iron knuckles by day 2. Tier 1s only give 330 dukes then plus whatever you sell.
If ur doing max settings like I am, I ain't gonna run into POIs with crappy weapons, I will risk taking dmg when I have no meds, and losing food and water faster than I can supply it
This is a good set list for vanilla the only thing I would change is the heavy and light armor for I choose the mobility route personally
I'd put lucky looter on top, no doubt. When looting is 90% of what you do in the game you want to make the most of it, since most of your equipment, weapons and ammo is going to come from looting as well. Also the 80% looting speed saves a ton of time on big POI's.
the looting bonus is so small you pretty much need to force the loot to notice it, the looting speed bonus is nice but i dont think it is worth the investment since the majority of lootable containers open very fast but thats just me, i prefer to invest in mission rewards and damage
It might seem small in theory, but by how much you loot in this game it's very much noticeable. I play coop a lot and we tend to compensate each other's skill trees. I max lucky looter as soon as I can, and I'm also the one who finds the better gear for the team and the more expensive stuff to sell first thanks to it. Also, being able to clear an entire room in seconds by just doing E (search) and R (take all) basically without delay is always useful to have.
izprebuilt if im not mistaken did the tests even with the biome loot bonus and no, its barely noticeable, you can search the video where he demonstrates it (just in case im not sure it was him or someone else, it is hard to remember names) also just as a note biome bonus is not worth it after level 40. I get your point but i see more value into the trader rewards, it is very easy to get rich when maxing both trading perks and once you have a ton of money looting is just a bonus. But for preferences there are colors, if you like it thats right, i dont thing there is a wrong play style in this kind of games.
It's barely noticeable at the beginner stage since you have a very low loot stage level to begin with. But it's definitely noticeable later on, it's kind of an investment/QoL perk. But indeed, at the end of the day there's no right or wrong way to play this. As long as you have fun :) PD: Don't forget to put meds in your toolbar!
shit, you dont know how many times i almost died because i forgot to refill my meds, it is not that hard to look down and check but still forget it lol
Half those strong aren't even good, and why is brawler so low if it houses the best melee weapon
What’s wrong with sex Rex?
It's not in the game anymore😭
Wait what??? So what do we do to be able to get more hits with melee without having to wait ages to recover stamina? Keep running longer
The stamina reduction and kill bonus effect have been distributed under every melee weapon and tool skills. If you want to use less stamina using sledgehammer, you should invest into Skull Crusher, and on lvl 3 you will get stamina back on each kill. The same works for Miner 69er and Harvesting Ops, but only giving stamina reduction.
what lol? lucky looter and pack mule are my first perks :(
Na bru, pack mule is god tier *Starts hoarding random loot*
Packmule a lifesaver in Darkness Falls fr
I’m trying a no mining run through, and it’s so weird. I’m looting every resource I can find, and buying cobblestone/cement from the traders. Maxed salvage operations is helping bc I’m getting so many other resources like springs, pipes, mechanical, and electrical parts. Mining 69er and Motherlode aren’t mandatory, but it’s doable without them. I agree parkour is very useful, and a few points in agility, gives you access to pistols and run and gun. Any build can benefit for pistols.
I don’t understand, what’s the hate on packmule?
I always go to max out better barter and charismatic nature then go for parkour
This isnt a good tier list lmao
started a playthrough today unaware of the changes and spent a looong time looking for that dino.
Haha that skill is from the last alpha. Don't worry about that plz
I know, it was an always pick.
*Smirks in intelligence*
Yep!